140Char

The ultimate guide to Twitter applications has been an idea many people have had. In fact, I even blogged about trying to start one with other Twitter bloggers back in January. But now Laura Fitton (@pistachio) and an engineering team have unveiled oneforty (no relation!) which is effectively the Twitter version of the iPhone app store.

Sign in with OAuth, and you can fill out your profile, including listing your favourite Tweeters etc. The site will automatically list any applications it picks up from your account – and then you can start finding and adding any others that it might have missed.

badgergravling on oneforty

There’s a curated list of Essential Applications, Most Popular, and the ability to suggest apps that may have been missed. Developers can list and claim their applications, add screenshots and reviews etc, and members of oneforty can then rate and review any application they wish.

Laura is also the Principal of Pistachio Consulting, which concentrates on microblogging, and the author of Twitter for Dummies. So she knows her stuff.

Posterous straddles the bridge between microblogging and lifestreaming, and although founder Sachin Agarwal definitely prefers the latter description, I’m guessing it’s of interest to you – both as a place to post and aggregate content, but also as a method for sending content out to other sites, such as Twitter.

In any case, it’s first iPhone application is now available, and PicPosterous provides an alternative to emailing all your updates.

You can send content, particularly images and videos, before you’ve registered for an account, which will mean one is automatically created for you, and visual content can also be added to an album without starting a new post.

You can’t forward links or plain text to the site, which is potentially frustrating, and another niggle is that you don’t have any control over your autoposting settings via the app, besides turning them on or off.

But, as always with Posterous, the focus is on keeping things incredibly quick and simple, and then building on that, so I’m sure the feature list will improve fairly quickly over time.

There’s something about Twitter’s recent decisions that just doesn’t make any sense to me at the moment.

It’s experiencing huge growth and celebrity adoption, it’s appearing in mainstream media (Even The Sun is carrying stories about Twitter),  and it has some money in the bank.

But one of the big advantages of the Twitter model is that it can use the huge advantage of external developers and applications undertaking the risky part of establishing themselves before acquiring them or introducing something similar.

After all, Twitter acquired Summize to become Twitter Search.

But since then, things have been a little different. First Twitter acquired Values of n, the company behind Stikkit and I Want Sandy, with Rael Dornfest joining Twitter’s user experience group – and the former services being shut, which caused some outcry, and a group of developers to come together to create an open source version of Sandy.

Recently Twitter introduced a ‘suggested users‘ page for new registrations and alongside the options to find other members. Which seemed like a reasonable idea to encourage new users to start following and interacting with other members.

Sadly it’s rubbish. For two reasons.

• There’s no relevancy. It’s offered to new users before they have filled in profile details or sent any messages, meaning thatthe suggestions have no context, and are pretty much useless. And although many people have said this could be the start of monetisation, how much money do irrelevant friend suggestions make?
• There are far better options out there already. For new users with no context, why not simply let people take a look at relevant categories on Twitter user directory Twellow? And if you’re looking for relevant suggestions for people to follow, there’s already the totally awesome MrTweet. (Interview here)

The only time I've mentioned a whale, it had 'fail' in front of it!

Much better suggestions and information from MrTweet

And now there’s concern over the decision to limit API calls from applications. I’m not aware of how many calls are average, so take a look at Jesse Stay’s thoughts on the SocialToo blog, Mark Evans at Twitterati, or SocialToo advisor Louis Gray (Who very kindly recommended and linked to 140char today!)

The idea from Twitter’s perspective is to ensure reliability – which is certainly understandable giving the problems that sometimes occur – and the only services that aren’t viable any longer are those which notify you of people unfollowing, such as Qwitter (no longer with us) . But as Marshall Kirkpatrick writes at ReadWriteWeb, Twitter applications are developing incredibly fast and this could hurt anyone trying to offer something radically new. And as Rafe Needleman points out at Cnet, it seems very odd that Twitter hasn’t used this chance to partner with external developers.

On the bright side, the API limit should force more efficient use of the Twitter API, which will benefit everyone, and the Twitter Firehose and OAuth support are due within around a month.

Hopefully that will mean Twitter can stop worrying about the scalability and learn to love external applications again. Especially as they’re building financial models (e.g. Twittad and Magpie), and monetisable services (e.g. Stocktwit) which show where the cash is for Twitter without the internal team having to experiment at all.

You do remember there are some microblogging networks other than Twitter?

If so, and you have an iPhone, you’ll be happy to know that there’s an official Plurk application, iPlurk, now available via the App store. Ironically for a service that differentiates itself from Twitter with a horizontal timeline and more graphical interface, both aspects have been dropped for the iPhone – then again, if you’re already engaged with the Plurk community, it might make more sense for a lighter interface to update when you’re on the move?

Meanwhile, the Google-owned Jaiku now has it’s own app, developed by third party mJaiku.  It’s got most of the features you’d expect to find, although a test by Darnell Clayton over at Blog Herald reveals that it doesn’t support domain shortening, which may be a significant pain in use. But the good thing is you can contact the developer via Jaiku at raiglstorfer

The trust that many people have in Twitter has been shaken recently by three major events – but there’s one idea that could solve some of the problems.

The events have been:

• A major Twitter phishing attack, which resulted in spam Direct Messages from comprimised accounts.
• High profile Twitter accounts being hacked – apparently by a fairly simple brute force dictionary attack on someone with access to Twitter support tools.
• Strange Display Errors – which turn out to be due to the combined forces of mass tweets from Macworld and CES.

Stopping anyone with admin access from using a password like ‘happiness’ should cure point number 2, and deadling with mass traffic is something that only Twitter itself can solve.

However, the loss of trust in applications is something that effects the whole Twitter ecosystem, as Mark Evans writes on Twitterati. And even implenting the much-requested OAuth as a technical solution doesn’t guarantee a rogue app can’t affect people. (via the MrTweet Blog)

So what’s the solution then?

It’s a simple idea – there are a lot of sites currently listing Twitter applications as soon as they become available to be the first to carry the news, and also to be a useful resource.

But what about an agreement between some of the Twitter bloggers and established app developers to implement a testing and approval procedure – a relatively simple process which could then list approved and tested applications, and allow them to display an badge of approval.

What gives bloggers the right?

The reason for pulling together reasonably prominent bloggers to implement approval is that we have something to lose if we’re not utterly honest – anyone can update the Twitter wiki with a link to a malicious application, but if 5 prominent Twitter bloggers did it, we’d all lose trust and social reputation, so it keeps us honest.

So what are the benefits?

• A list of Twitter applications which are being used and monitored to ensure they work as stated
• An independent approval system by people with a vested interest in keeping things honest
• More authoritative testing, and a larger quantity of apps being tested than each of us stating individually which apps we use – and a safeguard in case we’re tempted to recommend something without taking a proper look because we’re busy or going on holiday that week.
• And it means developers can display something to give them a trusted status without the need for a paid store (like the iPhone store), or worrying about being tarred with the same brush as malicious scammers?

So I’m throwing it open – good idea or bad? And are my fellow Twitter bloggers interested?

Want to spread the word? Copy, paste and tweet:

A quick and simple solution to sort the trusted and honest Twitter apps? http://bit.ly/vL48

Twitter has been hit by the first major effort to ‘phish‘ account details and spam users with links to a fake login page by Direct Messages from comprimised accounts.

The Twitter team has responded with a warning on the main web access page, and a warning on the Twitter blog. You can see the uproar it’s causing on Twitter via Twitter Search.

Currently the DMs are enticing people with:

• Here’s a funny blog about you
• Your picture is on this blog
• You’ve won a free iphone

Luckily the phishers are at least sticking to the grand tradition of email spamming by either trying to entice you with a blatantly ‘too good to be true’ offer, or something personal with the link to a fake Twitter log-in page displayed in full, so hopefully the word has spread to most people.

However, this is likely to be just the start. As Pete Cashmore pointed out at Mashable, this is a sign Twitter has reached a big enough size to be a viable target for scams – a positive sign for Twitter’s growth perhaps, but also a sign that the scammers and spammers are coming, with pretty big implications for Twitter users.

Shortened urls:

For starters, we were all lucky in some ways that the bloggers obviously aren’t familiar with Twitter culture, and were displaying the full url of the fake website, meaning that even if the DM came from someone we absolutely trusted, we had a warning before clicking.

But given that the character limit of Twitter means that shortened urls are the norm, it will make it almost impossible to detect whether a link is likely to be fake before at least visiting it – meaning an urgent need for preview functionality of shortened urls at the bare minimum.

Warning systems:

A lot of Twitter users picked up on the scam emails via friends, and stayed up to date with information via the #phishing hash tag etc – Twitter responded promptly with a warning on the website and blog. But what about the many, many people using a client to access Twitter and their Direct Messages? And those using mobiles to access the service?

Will everyone get a warning via each client and application? Unlikely at the moment, unless there is a type of ‘emergency signal’ which could be broadcast across all clients and apps.

Verified App Store:

Which brings me to the next possible implication – a few people have suggested that the fake log in page is in fact working as a Twitter application to utilise the stolen accounts and passwords.

It’s long been a matter of contention for users and app developers that any 3rd party application which requires a certain level of functionality has to ask for usernames and passwords – but now the 3rd party developers could be hit by a huge loss of trust from users.

So could this be an opportunity for a verified and approved Twitter application resource? Possibly monetised by charging a fee for consumers (unlikely), or for developers to have their application tested and approved (more likely)?

This could have implications for the speed and amount of Twitter applications and clients being produced, and also move such development away from bedroom coders depending on the fees for such services.

It certainly means that there could be a move for more users to utilise more than one Twitter account to allow them to test applications and clients etc without comprimising their main account.

So what other implications do you think the arrival of large scale phishing attacks could have on Twitter – and what suggestions do you have for other Tweeple – and Twitter itself, to try to minimise the damage of future attacks?

It’s a popular question today, after both Techcrunch and Mashable covered the launch of The New Platforms Fund, which will invest between $1000-$3000 in 10 ideas (plus human support), in exchange for a minor equity stake.

Techcrunch was pretty disparaging about the idea (headline: If you are really, really desperate for cash, these guys will give you $3k) Mashable’s take was a bit more open about the diea.

If you want to apply, the form is here.

But what is quite interesting is the debate in the TC comments around how much this could actually fund – obviously it’s not enough to pay for a team of developers for a year, but could it help 1 or 2-person start-ups just out of college to spend a month or two on one idea?

Or, given the current state of the economy and job market, could it be enough to make the mortgage payment for a month whilst you try something different? Or to get the services of a developer or designer for a week or two to make a simple concept into reality?

After all, Stocktwits got more funding after just two months.

But do you think $1-3k is enough to get something started? And is it worth giving up some equity in order to reach another round of funding?

Just caught up with two new applications making use of your Twitter data:

The first is a fun little thing called Tweet 3D. It’s a Tweet cloud – but in 3D! Not exactly about to start a revolution, but quite a pleasant and enjoyable way to display your most common tweet terms. You can check out mine here.

Meanwhile, there’s been some murmurs about What’s Your Tweet Worth?, which claims to value your Twitter account – presumably on the number of followers and posts. Unfortunately there are a few slight problems.

1. Apparently my valuation indicates I’ve made 200 updates. So underreporting by 4221 at the time of writing.

2. The site discloses that it’s sponsored by Twitads, which is good and honest – but in immediately suggesting people use the tool and then rush to Twitads to sell their profile backgrounds, it really rams home the fact that capitalism is coming to Twittersville.

3. There’s always been one major problem with any valuation service like this, whether it’s for blogs, microblogs, social networking profiles etc. The value of something is determined by what someone will pay for it – not by the number of contacts and links. They might provide the world’s roughest guide to possible popularity, but only in as much as an older antique might be worth more than a younger one, possibly, all other things being equal.

If I was buying a Twitter account or background, I wouldn’t look at the totals. I’d want to know who is following the account? What professions are they in? What demeorgraphic are they? Are they likely to be interested in my product? Are they likely to buy my product? Is the account posting quality content likely to have an impact on sales when I advertise on it? Etc.

And then I’d probably go and start my own account instead, for free, and connect with people that are really interested in what I’m offering.

For the record, my account is supposedly worth $44.32 per month. So, as it’s on Twittads as a test, let’s see if the valuation finds me the buyer I haven’t attracted so far!

I actually posted my thoughts on Twitter, earthquakes, and how major news sites are going to increasingly lose their advantages on breaking news on my other blog, www.thewayoftheweb.net, but obviously it also needs flagging up here.

I’ve tried to provide ways in which the news companies can adapt and evolve to embrace the new technology, but whether or not they’re capable of thinking in terms of changing quickly enough will be interesting…

I’d love to hear more thoughts on how applications like Twitter are affecting other people’s news diet…

Incidentally, you can see our first thoughts on earthquake messages on Twitter here. And it was online before the BBC, and around the same time as CNN!